The Outsider

'We all make mistakes, but starting the Third World War would have been a rather large one. To this day, I still maintain it was not entirely my fault. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

During the course of my life, I've barely escaped the wrath of an arms dealer in Hamburg, been strafed by a MiG during the Nigerian civil war, and landed during a bloody coup in Guinea-Bissau. The Stasi arrested me, the Israelis regaled me, the IRA prompted a quick move from Ireland to England, and a certain attractive Czech secret police agent - well, her actions were a bit more intimate. And that's just for starters.

All of that I saw from the inside. But all that time I was, nonetheless, an outsider.'

Trained first as a pilot, then as a journalist, Frederick Forsyth finally turned to fiction and became one of the most lauded thriller writers of our time. As exciting as his novels, Forsyth's autobiography is a candid look at an extraordinary life lived to the full, a life whose unique experiences have provided rich inspiration for thirteen internationally bestselling thrillers.

Author

Frederick Forsyth has packed a tremendous amount of action into his life and frequently drawn on his experiences to lend verisimilitude to his fiction. At the age of 19, he became the youngest pilot in the Royal Air Force, but then decided to follow a journalistic career as 'it was the only job that might enable me to travel and keep more or less my own hours.' After three years as a provincial reporter, he joined Reuters and spent the next four years in Europe.

In 1965 he joined the BBC and was sent to Biafra to cover the war that was raging in Nigeria. What he saw of this brutal and cynical conflict made it difficult for him to toe the editorial line of the BBC's coverage so he resigned, turned freelance, vanished into the thick of the conflict and later emerged to publish the highly controversial The Biafra Story. In 1969 he decided to use his experience as a Reuters reporter in France as the basis for a thriller. Within 35 day he'd completed The Day of the Jackal, which established him as one of the world's leading thriller writers. To date it has sold in the region of 10 million copies and was made into a major film starring Edward Fox in 1973.

In a case of life imitating art, while researching his new book The Cobra, Forsyth arrived in the West African state of Guinea-Bissau on the very day that the Army chief-of-staff was murdered, allegedly by order of the President. That night, in a tit-for-tat attack, the President himself was bombed out of his residence, shot and hacked to death. Unable to leave the country, Forsyth found himself back in the role of journalist reporting on this coup for the British press.

Frederick Forsyth is married and lives in Buckinghamshire. His interests include swimming, scuba-diving, game-fishing, travelling and reading. He was awarded a CBE in 1997.

The Outsider

Frederick Forsyth has seen it all. And lived to tell the tale.

'We all make mistakes, but starting the Third World War would have been a rather large one. To this day, I still maintain it was not entirely my fault. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

During the course of my life, I've barely escaped the wrath of an arms dealer in Hamburg, been strafed by a MiG during the Nigerian civil war, and landed during a bloody coup in Guinea-Bissau. The Stasi arrested me, the Israelis regaled me, the IRA prompted a quick move from Ireland to England, and a certain attractive Czech secret police agent - well, her actions were a bit more intimate. And that's just for starters.

All of that I saw from the inside. But all that time I was, nonetheless, an outsider.'

Trained first as a pilot, then as a journalist, Frederick Forsyth finally turned to fiction and became one of the most lauded thriller writers of our time. As exciting as his novels, Forsyth's autobiography is a candid look at an extraordinary life lived to the full, a life whose unique experiences have provided rich inspiration for thirteen internationally bestselling thrillers.

The Kill List

The Kill List: a top secret catalogue of names held at the highest level of the US government. On it, those men and women who would threaten the world's security. And at the top of it, The Preacher, a radical Islamic cleric whose sermons inspire his followers to kill high profile Western targets in the name of God. As the bodies begin to pile up in America, Great Britain and across Europe, the message goes out: discover this man's identity, locate him and take him out.

Tasked with what seems like an impossible job is an ex-US marine who has risen through the ranks to become one of America's most effective intelligence chiefs. Now known only as The Tracker, he must gather what scant evidence there is, collate it and unmask The Preacher if he is to prevent the next spate of violent deaths. Aided only by a brilliant teenaged hacker, he must throw out the bait and see whether his deadly target can be drawn from his lair...

The Day of The Jackal

One of the most celebrated thrillers ever written, The Day of the Jackal is the electrifying story of the struggle to catch a killer before it's too late.

It is 1963 and an anonymous Englishman has been hired by the Operations Chief of the O.A.S. to murder General de Galle. A failed attempt in the previous year means the target will be nearly impossible to get to. But this latest plot involves a lethal weapon: an assassin of legendary talent.

Known only as The Jackal this remorseless and deadly killer must be stopped, but how do you track a man who exists in name alone?

The Cobra

Cocaine is worth billions of dollars a year to the drug cartels who spread their evil seed across Western society. It causes misery, poverty and death. And slowly its power is spreading...

A MAN ON A MISSION

Ex-CIA special ops, Paul Devereux, intellectual, dedicated and utterly ruthless, is given what seems like an impossible task: Stop the drug barons, whatever it costs. At his disposal, anything he wants - men, resources, money. He must assemble a team equal to the lawless men who control this deadly trade.

AN UNTHINKABLE SOLUTION

Up to now the drug cartels have had it their way. Up to now, the forces of law and order have played by the rules. That is about to change. Those rules no longer apply... and a dirty war is about to get a whole lot dirtier...

The Afghan

When British and American intelligence catch wind of a major Al Qaeda operation in the works, they are primed for action - but what can they do? They know nothing about the attack: the what, where or when. They have no sources in Al Qaeda, and it's impossible to plant someone. Impossible, unless...

The Afghan is Izmat Khan, a five-year prisoner of Guantanamo Bay and a former senior commander of the Taliban. The Afghan is also Colonel Mike Martin, a 25-year veteran of war zones around the world, a dark, lean man born and raised in Iraq. In an attempt to stave off disaster, the intelligence agencies will try to do what no one has ever done before - pass off a Westerner as an Arab among Arabs - pass off Martin as the trusted Khan.

It will require extraordinary preparation, and then extraordinary luck, for nothing can truly prepare Martin for the dark and shifting world he is about to enter. Or for the terrible things he will find there...

The Day of the Jackal, The Dogs of War, The Odessa File - the books of Frederick Forsyth have helped define the international thriller as we know it today. Combining meticulous research with crisp narratives and plots as current as the headlines, Forsyth shows us the world as it is, in a way that few have ever been able to equal.

Avenger

A young American aid volunteer, Ricky Colenso, is brutally murdered in former Yugoslavia. His grandfather, the Canadian billionaire Steven Edmond, is bent on revenge. The quest to find Ricky's murderer leads Edmond to Cal Dexter, ex-Vietnam Special Forces, the one man who could bring the killer to justice. But what starts as a personal, domestic tragedy soon explodes into a terrifying drama on the centre stage of world terrorism.

From the battlefield of Vietnam via war-torn Serbia to the jungles of Central America, Avenger is packed with riveting detail, breathtaking action and political suspense, while in Cal Dexter we meet an unforgettable hero in the most dynamic Forsyth tradition.

The Veteran

A collection of five heart-stopping stories from the master thriller writer.

A miracle in war-torn Siena that begins with the persecution of a young nun in the turbulent days of the sixteenth century and culminates in the bitter German retreat from Italy; a drug smuggling heist on an international flight where the Knock pit their wits against the smugglers; a brural urban murder, where a brilliant QC decides to defend the killers, resulting in a startling justice; an incandescent art scam at a famous London auction house, and a brilliantly plotted revenge that shatters the elegant world of the Old Masters - each story is a remarkable tour de force.

And above all here is a brilliant novella, 'Whispering Wind', which begins with the single survivor of Custer's Last Stand at the battle of Little Big Horn. Then follows the rescue from rape and murder of a Cheyenne girl and a flight across the mountains and forests of the West, ending in a savage present-day manhunt in the wild lands of Montana.

Icon

It is 1999 and Russia is on the edge of total implosion. Social and moral order has collapsed and what small semblance of control there is, is being imposed by mafia-like criminal gangs. While public opinion in the West is largely indifferent, the political analysts are less sanguine - Russian meltdown will make the disintegration of the Balkans look like the collapse of a cup-cake. Out of the chaos, however, a single charismatic voice is starting to be heard - that of Igor Komarov, a visionary patriot who claims he can restore Russia's greatness and bring prosperity to the masses. He even woos Western political leaders with a rather more realistic analysis of the way forward for Russia. Komarov is set to win the next election when a document is smuggled into the British Embassy in Moscow. It's called The Black Manifesto and it appears to show Komarov's secret agenda - his political blueprint is really Mein Kampf, the rebirth of Russia will be as a New Third Reich with Komarov as Fuhrer. But can the document be authenticated? And what can the Western Alliance's most secret Trilateral Commission do about it if it is? They need to find another voice the masses will listen to and obey rather than Komarov - an icon they can cleave to and trust. Once, not that long ago, he was called the Tsar.

And so develops a thrilling and increasingly frightening adventure - Jason Monk, ex-CIA, who used to run agents into the Soviet Union, is recruited and slips back into Russia, into the desperate Moscow world of poverty, luxury, gangsters and prostitutes and underneath it all, the titanic power struggle to ensure the outcome of the forthcoming elections.

The Fist of God

During those fateful weeks before Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, a fragment of radio intercept had referred to Qubth-ut-Allah, a devastating secret weapon that could rain death and destruction on the Allied forces.

Despite Allied scepticism, Major Mike Martin, an SAS man who can pass as an Arab, is sent into Kuwait to assess Iraqi strength and help the resistance. What he discovers there takes him into the heart of Baghdad, where he is to 'run' the Iraqi spy known as Jericho, the sleeper who might be prepared to provide vital information for money. It is a highly dangerous operation, the results of which cause the Allies to delay their ground assault for four days - while Martin parachutes into the Iraqi mountains on the most hazardous mission of his life: to find and destory Qubth-ut-Allah - the Fist of God.

Great Flying Stories

Finding out how to fly was man's last great adventure, Frederick Forsyth writes, and in this wonderfully entertaining volume he gathers and introduces an extraordinary array of tales of our love affair with flight. H. G. Wells's My First Aeroplane hilariously evokes the days when a flying machine was a proper toy for a gentleman. The Unparalleled Adventures of One Hans Pfaall by Edgar Allan Poe is a weird fantasy - part Baron Munchhausen and part Rip Van Winkle. W. E. Johns's Spads and Spandaus recounts an American flier's baptism by fire at the hands of the famed Baron Richthofen. H. E. Bates, Flying Officer X, contributes How Sleep the Brave, the adventures of a bomber crew shot down over the North Sea and their struggle to survive in a pitching dinghy. Richard Bach, author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, is represented by Cat, in which a strange Persian cat keeps watch over the comings and goings of a USAF squadron. In They Will Never Grow Old, Roald Dahl takes us into the tight cir of a British air squadron in the Middle East in World War II and spins the haunting story of a pilot who is given up for lost and returns, under the most mysterious circumstances, to describe a flight beyond this world. Rounding out the collection are tales by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Len Deighton, J. G. Ballard, F. Britten Austin, and John Buchan. In the words of Frederick Forsyth's stirring introduction, 'The last of the lonely places is the sky, a trackless void where nothing lives or grows, and above it, space itself. Man may have been destined to walk upon ice or sand, or climb the mountains or take a craft upon the sea. But surely he was never meant to fly? But he does, and findin out how to do it was his last great adventure.'

The Deceiver

Sam McCready is The Deceiver, one of the Secret Intelligence Service's most unorthodox and most valued operatives, a legend in his own time. The end of the cold war has, however, strengthened the hand of the Whitehall mandarins, to whom he seems about as controllable as Genhis Khan, so Sam is to have his fate decided at a special hearing.

As part of the proceedings, four of Sam's key operations are reviewed: a clandestine mission into East Germany in 1985 to contact the top Russian spy General Pankratin; the second involving a KGB colonel who wants to defect - but is he genuine? An audacious Qaddafi-inspired plot to ship arms to the IRA; and the fourth when McCready presided over the aftermath of political murder and mayhem in the Caribbean.

The Negotiator

The kidnapping of a young man on a country road in Oxfordshire is but the first brutal step in a ruthless plan to force the President of the United States out of office. If it succeeds, he will be psychologically and emotionally destroyed. Only one man can stop it - Quinn, the world's foremost Negotiator, who must bargain for the life of an innocent man, unaware that ransom was never the kidnapper's real objective...

The Negotiator unfolds with the spellbinding excitement, unceasing surprise and riveting detail that are the hallmarks of Frederick Forsyth, the master storyteller.

The Fourth Protocol

Plan Aurora, hatched in a remote dacha in the forest outside Moscow and initiated with relentless brilliance and skill, is a plan within a plan that, in its spine-chilling ingenuity, breaches the ultra-secret Fourth Protocol and turns the fears that shaped it into a living nightmare.

A crack Soviet agent, placed under cover in a quiet English country town, begins to assemble a jigsaw of devastation. MI5 investigator John Preston, working against the most urgent of deadlines, leads an operation to prevent the act of murderous destruction aimed at tumbling Britain into revolution...

No Comebacks

Deception, blackmail, murder, revenge - these are the themes of stories that move from London to the coast of Spain, from Mauritius to Dublin to Dordogne. Whether his subject is assassination by stealth, the cruel confidence trick or the cold shock of coincidence, Frederick Forsyth is never less than compulsive, the detail always authentic.

Ten stories with the master's touch - a brilliantly readable first collection by an incomparable craftsman of suspense.

The Devil's Alternative

'Whichever option I choose, men are going to die.'

When the entire Soviet Union wheat crop is destroyed by a devastating string of failures, the population faces starvation. The USA is quick to offer assistance. They devise a plan to trade vital food resources with the Russians in exchange for sensitive political information. But the Politburo has other ideas: the invasion of Western Europe to commandeer the food for themselves...

As the paths of communication breakdown the president of the United States and leaders from around the world face an appalling choice: Should they allow the loss of thousands to save the lives of many more? This is the Devil's Alternative and in this incomparable and gripping thriller the Cold War giants must fight a battle to the death.

The Shepherd

It is Christmas Eve, 1957. Flying home, on leave from Germany, he is alone in the cockpit of the Vampire. Sixty-six minutes of flying time, with the descent and landing - destination Lakenheath. No problem, all routine procedures.

Then, out over the North sea, the fog begins to close in. Radio contact ceases and the compass goes haywire. Suddenly, out of the mist appears a World War II bomber. It is flying just below the Vampire, as of trying to make contact...

The Dogs Of War

An astonishing discovery is made in the remote African republic of Zangaro, one which could change the course of a nation's history forever. But such a discovery cannot be kept secret for long and Sir James Manson will stop at nothing to protect this find. A ruthless and bloody-minded tycoon, Manson immediately hires an army of mercenaries and with this deadly crew behind him he sets out to topple the government and replace its dictator with a puppet president.

But news of the discovery has reached Russia - and suddenly Manson finds he no longer makes the rules in this power game. A game in which win or lose means life or death.

The Odessa File

Can you forgive the past?

It's 1963 and a young German reporter has been assigned the suicide of a holocaust survivor. The news story seems straighforward, this is a tragic insight into one man's suffering. But a long hidden secret is discovered in the pages of the dead man's diary.

What follows is life-and-death hunt for a notorious former concentration camp-commander, a man responsible for the deaths of thousands, a man as yet unpunished.